WHO: Dennis Selkoe, MD, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and corresponding author of the paper in Neuron. Andrew Stern, MD, PhD, of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at BWH and first author of the paper in Neuron WHAT: In a report published in Neuron, a team led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital reveals the structure of the therapeutic target of lecanemab, a drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in January 2023 for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. While the ...

Much of what is now considered modern medicine originated as folk remedies or traditional, Indigenous practices. These customs are still alive today, and they could help address a variety of conditions. Now reporting in ACS Omega, a team of researchers have identified compounds in the leaves of a particular medicinal Labrador tea plant used throughout the First Nations of Nunavik, Canada, and demonstrated that one of them has activity against the parasite responsible for malaria. “Labrador tea” refers to multiple, closely related plants — all members of the genus Rhododendron. ...

Using ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), astronomers have created a vast infrared atlas of five nearby stellar nurseries by piecing together more than one million images. These large mosaics reveal young stars in the making, embedded in thick clouds of dust. Thanks to these observations, astronomers have a unique tool with which to decipher the complex puzzle of stellar birth. “In these images we can detect even the faintest sources of light, like stars far less massive than the Sun, revealing objects that no one has ever seen before,” says Stefan Meingast, an astronomer at the University of Vienna in Austria and lead author ...

Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (NASDAQ: CCRN), a market-leading, tech-enabled workforce solutions platform and advisory firm, in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University, today announced the results of its annual survey of nursing professionals and students. The study found that although nurses are passionate about doing meaningful work and earning a good income, only one-third of nurses plan to remain in the profession for the foreseeable future, and about one-fourth plan to leave in just one to two years from now. The survey, conducted in collaboration with FAU’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, found ...

How did catalytic organic polymers emerge on prebiotic Earth? Answering this essential question will unlock key understandings in the origin of life. A team of scientists at Tohoku University have recently found a potential environment for the reaction that produced catalytic organic polymers. To do so, they dried down amino acid solutions containing boric acid and found that boric acid catalyzes polypeptide synthesis under neutral and acidic conditions. The longest peptides formed in the experiments were 39 monomer-long glycine polypeptides under a neutral condition. Previous studies ...

Barcelona, Spain – 11 May 2023:  Postmenopausal women with clogged arteries are at higher risk of heart attacks than men of similar age, according to research presented at EACVI 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC),1 and published in European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Imaging.2 The study in nearly 25,000 adults used imaging techniques to examine the arteries and followed patients for heart attacks and death. “The study suggests that a given burden of atherosclerosis ...

Osaka, Japan – Ischemic stroke, caused by a blockage of blood flow to the brain, is a common cause of death and disability. Treatments are urgently needed to improve patient outcomes, because recovery currently depends largely on the timely injection of a blood clot-dissolving drug. Priorities for therapy include limiting inflammation at the ischemic site and rebuilding neuronal connections damaged by the stroke. However, a molecule that can achieve these therapeutic effects has remained elusive. In a study to be published in Stroke, researchers from Osaka University provide new hope for patients. They have identified ...

Astronomers have found that supermassive black holes obscured by dust are more likely to grow and release tremendous amounts of energy when they are inside galaxies that are expected to collide with a neighbouring galaxy. The new work, led by researchers from Newcastle University, is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Galaxies, including our own Milky Way, contain supermassive black holes at their centres. They have masses equivalent to millions, or even billions, times that of our ...

Rooftop solar arrays have the potential to meet the annual electricity demands of up to 35% of US manufacturing sectors.  On-site sources of renewable energy currently supply less than 0.1% of industrial electricity demand in the US.   The industrial sector accounts for 38% of global energy consumption and 37% of greenhouse gas emissions.  Despite having the potential to cover 13.6% of the national electricity demand, rooftop solar arrays currently account for just 2.2% of the electricity grid mix.   Mounted on the rooftops ...

Students in Sweden are positive towards AI tools such as ChatGPT in education, but 62 percent believe that using chatbots during exams is cheating. However, where the boundary for cheating lies is highly unclear. This is shown in a survey from Chalmers University of Technology, which is the first large-scale study in Europe to investigate students' attitudes towards artificial intelligence in higher education. “I am afraid of AI and what it could mean for the future.” “Don't worry so much! Keep up with the development and adapt your teaching ...

Shortages of health workers such as doctors, nurses and midwifery staff are strongly associated with higher death rates, especially for certain diseases such as neglected tropical diseases and malaria, pregnancy and birth complications, diabetes and kidney diseases, finds an analysis of 172 countries and territories, published by The BMJ today. The results show that, although inequalities in health workforces have been decreasing globally over the past 30 years, they continue to have a substantial ...

Experts have called for further scrutiny of a new Pfizer vaccine given during pregnancy to prevent respiratory infection in infants, after trials of a similar GSK vaccine were stopped after  a rise in preterm birth and infant deaths. Pfizer says its vaccine is safe and effective, but experts contacted as part of an investigation published by The BMJ today, say Pfizer’s trial data should be reviewed in light of the signal for preterm births seen in GSK’s trial. Pfizer’s ...

The silicon microchips of future quantum computers will be packed with millions, if not billions of qubits – the basic units of quantum information – to solve the greatest problems facing humanity. And with millions of qubits needing millions of wires in the microchip circuitry, it was always going to get cramped in there. But now engineers at UNSW Sydney have made an important step towards solving a long-standing problem about giving their qubits more breathing space -- and it all revolves around jellybeans. Not the kind we rely on for a sugar hit to get us past the 3pm slump. But jellybean quantum dots –elongated areas between qubit ...

Around one in five people may be suffering with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), according to a study published today (Thursday) in the ERJ Open Research [1].   People with OSA often snore loudly, their breathing starts and stops during the night, and they may wake up several times. Not only does this cause tiredness, but it can also increase the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.   Treatments and lifestyle changes can help people with OSA. However, ...

As the cost of living continues to spiral, a new report shows more than half of gig economy workers in the UK are paid below the minimum wage. The first-of-its-kind study, led by the University of Bristol, found 52% of gig workers doing jobs ranging from data entry to food delivery were earning below the minimum wage. On average respondents were earning £8.97 per hour – around 15% below the current UK minimum wage, which rose to £10.42 this month. More than three-quarters (76%) of survey respondents also experienced work-related ...

Sophia Antipolis, 11 May 2023:  A healthy diet is associated with greater physical fitness in middle-aged adults, according to research published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 “This study provides some of the strongest and most rigorous data thus far to support the connection that better diets may lead to higher fitness,” said study author Dr. Michael Mi of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, US. “The improvement in fitness we observed in participants with better diets was similar to the effect of taking 4,000 more steps each ...

New research led by the universities of Southampton and Oxford has found that the risk of long COVID is strongly associated with area-level deprivation, with the odds of having long COVID 46 percent higher for people from the most deprived areas, compared to those in the least deprived areas. Published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the study analysed over 200,000 working-age adults and is the first to quantify the association between long COVID and socioeconomic status across a range of occupation sectors. Analysing data from the Office ...

A University of Queensland study has found humpback whales sing louder when the wind is noisy, but don’t have the same reaction to boat engines. Research lead Dr Elisa Girola from UQ’s Faculty of Science said this quirk of whale evolution could have consequences for breeding and behaviour. “Humpback whales evolved over millions of years with noise from natural sources but noise from man-made vessels is foreign to their instincts,” Dr Girola said. “It’s a ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. (May 11, 2023) – A class of drugs used for their ability to stop tumor cells from dividing is now under study for their potential to reduce the pain and damage caused by sickle cell disease, investigators report.  The drugs are called HDAC inhibitors, and the investigators have early evidence one called panobinostat can reactivate after birth the gene that produces fetal hemoglobin, which cannot sickle, says Abdullah Kutlar, MD, director of the Center for Blood Disorders at the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta University Health. Hemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying component of red blood cells, and with sickle cell disease it’s ...

Arlington, Va., May 11, 2023 – A new study published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) suggests that allowing bedside nurses to independently order testing for C. difficile significantly decreased the amount of time to receive test results as compared to requiring physician approval. The findings suggest that the testing policy change could potentially decrease the risk of additional patient infections and the corresponding hospital economic burden. Individuals with C. difficile infection (CDI) can be asymptomatic or have ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio ­– Doctors have long stressed the importance of maintaining a healthy weight for improving overall health, but a large new study also suggests it could also reduce future gastrointestinal cancer (GI) risk. The study, published today in JAMA Network Open, found that an overweight or obese body mass index (BMI) in early and middle adulthood is associated with increased risk for gastrointestinal cancer. The study also found that frequent aspirin use did not modify this increased risk in overweight and obese individuals. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among men and women in the United ...

In a groundbreaking new collaboration, scientists at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) have identified the types of microbes that associate with engineered oilcane. Further exploration of the oilcane microbiome may reveal opportunities to leverage plant-microbial interactions in these feedstocks, which could increase oil yields for sustainable bioenergy production. In terms of biomass, sugarcane is the world’s most-produced crop, and it’s not hard to see why; it provides the feedstock for 26% of the world’s bioethanol and 80% of global ...

Scientists at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) near Philadelphia have found that a drug discovered at SFU and patented several years ago may have potential lifesaving results in the treatment of conditions leading to sudden cardiac death. The drug, known as AR-787, was originally discovered and designed by former PhD student Mena Abdelsayed as a pharmacological solution for arrhythmias. The so-called J Wave syndromes (JWS), consisting of Brugada syndrome and early repolarization syndromes, occur in about ...

The behaviors and actions of hypersocial species like humans are heavily influenced by the behaviors and actions of those around them. This was evidenced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic; protective measures such as masking and social distancing varied widely as these behaviors were affected by where people were and who they were around, which in turn affected disease prevalence and transmission rates. Now, researchers from the School of Arts & Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Queen’s University in Canada have produced a theoretical model for disease ...

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have created an exercise training program that survivors of severe COVID-19 can safely perform at home as rehabilitation therapy for persistent symptoms after they are discharged from hospital. Findings of a study recently reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine show that exercise can improve the quality of life for these patients, benefitting their health and functionality while reducing the number of persistent symptoms, such as muscle pain and weakness.  Long COVID (also known as post-COVID-19 syndrome) affects more than 40% of people who ...